Where There is No Sun
by Oceans in Hand
Summary: The door is sealed. Ichigo doesn't have to look, to move to know that even if he were a captain with years of formal instruction and centuries of experience under his belt, he would not breach it. He died in battle, Yamamoto said.
1. Chapter 1

**Where There is No Sun (1)**

Ichigo's eyes widen. He can't believe what he's just heard.

Even Soi Fon seems uneasy with the order Yamamoto has just given her. Her eyes dart to the teenager. His body is weak from the continual strain of war; even now, his shoulders heave with heavy breathing. Ichigo can't remember the last time he was properly rested.

He sees Soi Fon's hands clench briefly, so tightly they shake. "S-sir…"

Yamamoto's spiritual pressure blows away from him in a buffeting wave. Ichigo is nearly pushed off his feet. Soi Fon's foot slides back an inch.

"You will defy me, Captain?"

Soi Fon pales, and Ichigo doesn't blame her. Yamamoto has shown himself to be a capable commander, an unbeatable force.

But since the beginning of the Winter War, he has also revolutionized the meaning of the phrase, the end justifies the means.

Yamamoto is brutual.

Yamamoto is vicious.

Yamamoto is merciless.

Soi Fon's shoulders dip as she visibly relents. Any other captain would not have so easily, though all would have eventually. They would have helped Ichigo out, except for maybe Mayuri. He would consider it a waste.

Soi Fon took a step in his direction. Her hand twitched at her side, and a dozen of her men appeared around her.

"Take him." She ordered.

Ichigo hadn't known that sealing spiritual power could hurt so badly.

Within moments, he is securely bound and tied, supported only by the hands holding him up. He clings to consciousness; he wants to hear the rest of this conversation.

Soi Fon stops Yamamoto when he goes to leave. "…What will you tell everyone?"

He thinks for a moment, sparing a careless glance at the teenager.

Facing the archway again, he says, "He died in battle."

Yamamoto disappeared around the curve of the stairwell, heading for the ground level.

Soi Fon bites her lip. It was a very small, uncertain gesture; Ichigo wonders if anyone else saw it. She steels her resolve and squares her shoulders once again.

"Put him in a cell on the lowest floor. Taku."

"Ah!"

"Bring Ochi down once he's secured. Have him put every seal he knows of on the door." Her eyes focus on a spot over Ichigo's head. She can't bear to meet his.

"…along with a sustaining spell. As Yamamoto hasn't determined his sentence, he could be down there for a while."

Ichigo releases his grip on consciousness then, with an inward sob. He had never imagined it would come to something like this; he should have left with Shinji and the others.

He resurfaces sometime later. An older man in a heavy robe is positioned at Soi Fon's right on the other side of the door. The lingering sting of spiritual power weighs the air.

The door is sealed. Ichigo doesn't have to look, to move to know that even if he were a captain with years of formal instruction and centuries of experience under his belt, he would not breach those seals.

The robed-man was speaking. "…-haps it would be prudent to make the official declaration." His eyes catch Ichigo's briefly, and he clears his throat, adding, "While he's with us."

Soi Fon is startled, and looks down to him before she can remember her disinclination to meet his eyes; she does for a moment, before jerking her chin to the side with a forced, "Che."

She grasps her wrist behind her back and straightens.

"Kurosaki Ichigo, you have been found guilty of treason and inhumane practice. You are hereby been sentenced to…" She hesitates, messily. Her ramrod posture fails her for a moment, and she stutters as she thinks. "To…indefinite years…h-here. In Fuchi."

Ochi nodds, pleased, and leaves. His footsteps are whisper light, but loud.

Soi Fon's fists shake. She's biting her lip again as she looks off in the direction the old man had gone.

With an awkward, almost clumsy move, she falls into an abrupt crouch and snatches a fistful of Ichigo's hair, pulling his face closer to hers.

"Kurosaki," She says lowly, urgent. "I will make sure someone knows you're done here. I'm sorry."

Then she follows Ochi's path, and he is alone. Ichigo stares after her long after she's gone.

Subconsciously, he recognizes the hollow moving in his head.

_Shit, _it says to him. _Didn't see that one coming_.

**xx**

There is absolutely _nothing_ but darkness. Darkness, and the hollow. Even Zangetsu is elsewhere.

_The old geezer probably stuffed him somewhere. _The hollow says. _We'll find him if we look long enough. And whaddya you know! Plenty of time!_

Ichigo ignores him. He's too busy being grateful for his constant and overwhelming fatigue. If he were at full energy, he would be going nuts at what has just happened. Yamamoto ordering him locked away for…however long. Telling everyone, all of his friends and family that he's dead. Putting him in the literal _abyss_, where the gloom is so thick that he cannot see anything, at all.

It is true cave-darkness.

…Should I go crazy now? He wonders to himself. But the hollow is there, and he hears. His dry laugh, like dead leaves crunching underfoot, echoes through Ichigo's head.

_If you feel like it. _The hollow leers, a certain predatory gleam in his eye. _But, careful Ichi. The crazy will bring us closer together. Is that what you want?_

Ichigo scowls.

Not really.

_So let's make a game out of it. How long do you think you'll hold out? You've already got the voice in your head…_

More laughter.

His frown deepens. Rolling over on the stone floor, sighing, he thinks, I'm thirsty.

And the hollow's cackle tapers off in his mind, and he hears something almost like remorse in his voice.

_I think that's something you need to get used to._

**xx**

Ichigo thinks to the hollow, How much time do you think has passed? A few hours?

_Longer than that. _

Ichigo muses over how its voice has changed since it first spoke up. Then, the hollow had been chipper, hyper, happy its own sadistic way. The last few passes, it has been…weary.

How much longer?

_Longer._

**xx**

It refused to tell.

Ichigo decides one…something. Ichigo decides that a few days at least must have passed. He certainly feels more rested, sleep being, pretty much, all that he can do with the hollow silent and unresponsive. But his body, already sore and out of whack from so many cycles of injury and healing, injury and healing, bemoans the density of the floor. His back aches in four different ways. His neck is stiff, and his hips hurt.

Around the same time, Ichigo comes to the conclusion that no one plans on feeding him.

Guess it's a good thing I can't starve in this form, he thinks. Then he tries to figure out how much of that is sarcasm.

He wonders what's happened to his body. He's never really tested, tried to discover how long it can half-live like that. A few weeks, maybe a year or two? How long before his heart forgets how to beat? And with Kon lost, sometime in the War…

He leans against the wall he'd felt out some…time before, and dismisses the train of thought. There's nothing he can do until someone comes to get him. He trusts Soi Fon will tell someone, sooner or later, like she said she would.

**xx**

Eventually, without really realizing it, Ichigo drifts into something deeper than sleep, closer to hibernation. And the hollow, seeing its chance, goes to work.

**xx**

Driving someone insane is difficult, the hollow discovers.

It is grateful for Ichigo's exhaustion as well. Sleeping Ichigo means there's no one aware and alert to ask, "What the hell are you doing?"

It had to dig through the Id to reach the Ego, and that is difficult enough in and of itself. The Id is a lazy place, nothing is really complete or…well, awake. But it's thick. There's a lot to dig through. It takes a while to reach the Ego.

The Ego is cluttered. There's stuff everywhere. It manifests like a crowded storage room, with breakables stacked everywhere, that will fall if it so much as looks at them.

This is very dangerous, very difficult as well. If the wrong thing is broken, moved, Ichigo will go insane in the wrong way. The hollow doesn't want to make a vegetable out of him. It just wants to make him a little more…open-minded.

The ground rumbles beneath its feet. The breakable things tinkle as they shudder against each other.

_I know, I know._ The hollow bends slowly and gives the ground a pat. _I know. But this stuff takes time._

It ties back its sleeves and rubs its hands together, wondering what it should break first.

**xx**

The floor begins to rock again as the hollow lifts up a heavy clay pot, its mouth sealed with wax, triumphantly.

_Sheesh, I'm working, I'm working! A little patience, please?_ The hollow stomps a foot.

The rumbling spikes, and the hollow's eyes go round as the sounds of breaking glass come from various parts of the room. _H…hey, cool it. You're gonna hurt the poor guy._

There is a last, impatient vibration, and the hollow turns just in time to see a vase tumble down and shatter. It plucks the plak that had hung around the neck from amid the sharp pieces.

It says, _Re_**m**_oRs**E**._

The hollow blinks, shrugs, and drops it back to the ground.

_Oh well._

**xx**

And eventually, Ichigo wakes up.

He sits up in the dark, rubbing at his face and groaning at the heaviness in his limbs, a kind he hasn't felt in…god. Years.

He gives the hollow a mental jab.

Oi. How long have I been asleep?

He got the impression that the hollow was tired. Had it been sleeping?

_...I dunno. Don't bother me._

Ichigo snorts.

A few minutes later…

Hollow.

_What._

How long has it been?

_...a long time. It's been a really, really long time._

Soi Fon said she'd tell someone.

_She must have lied._

Ichigo takes a moment to process that. Soi Fon, lie? It hadn't even occurred to him. She looked so unwilling to put him down here, he took for granted that, maybe, she was just trying to…

To what? Leave him a ray of hope? Psh.

_Like that ice-bitch would do something like that_, the hollow sneered sleepily.

Ichigo shrugs off his hakama, bundling it up for a makeshift pillow. Lying with his eyes open (for all of the difference it makes), he's suddenly hurt and angry.

You said it.

**xx**

The hollow has slept too. Since completing its work in the Ego, it pushed around a few things in the Id to augment Ichigo's more…base desires. After that it was tired so, yeah, it slept.

_You boxed up the old man, right?_ He pokes the ground, eyes drifting closed.

There was a soft rumble, like a purr almost.

_That's good. Now we just have to wait._

Another tremor, this one like a roll, a wave beneath the surface.

The hollow peeks.

_Makes you happy, huh._

Something flutters in his chest. Yawning, he writes it off, and lays out to sleep.

**xx**

Later, he sees that fluttering for what it really is: trepidation. The hollow curses to himself, as privately as he can (because here there is no such thing as an unspoken thought), and wishes that he had been a little slower to join forces with It.

He's nervous, and he's been very, very reckless. He doesn't know what It is, where it came from, what it works for, anymore than Ichigo or the others. He's as much of an idiot as he's always accused Ichigo of being. Figures since, they are only inversions of each other, he supposes.

The hollow realizes all of this as he wakes up, and sees how the city in Ichigo's mind has begun to show wear, assumedly from the damage he has done.

He sees broken windows. He sees crumbling mortar. He hears creaking support beams, and the swoop of oncoming rain.

The old man isn't here, at least.

But more than that, he feels a tug, a pull, insistent fingers trying to lead him to the tallest skyscraper in the center of the 'city.' A force, a specific kind of force too, a…a…

**xx**

There's a vortex, a maelstrom in the street at the base of the skyscraper. The hollow clings to a jagged glass tooth, the lone remnant of what was once a thick window. Its hands are torn by the edge, and it growls, frustrated, fighting panic, as its hold slips in the blood that escapes from its wounds.

The storm's strength had gradually increased. At first, leaves and pebbles were drawn to it. Now…how long had it been…so much time later, the buildings are leaning in, making huge sounds like the roar of a dying Titan, that reverberate through the city and make the hollow's bones throb fiercely.

Ichigo is still asleep outside. The hollow is not an especially emotional being; right now, though, there are few things it wants more than King clinging to the familiar for what _could_ be dear life next to him.

Because if King were here, _he_ would be going out of his mind, freaking out, and the hollow could be the cool and knowledgeable one like he usually was. Er, when the old man wasn't around, anyway.

But King isn't here. He has no clue that his world is going away. And there is nothing to distract the hollow from understanding: he's fucked up.

And he's going to pay for it, very soon.

**xx**

High above, Seireitei is torn by civil war.

If you stop any lone person and ask them—_how the hell did this all start?_—none can answer, through few might try.

Many will point fingers at the remaining arrancar; the few sympathizers that had swapped sides during the course of the war, and fought against Aizen.

Many of those many feel, deep down, that they have simply cast for a scapegoat and ensnared an easy catch. But there has been little sign of the arrancar in recent times. Students from the Academy have graduated and taken rank, and know nothing about them, or the vaizards.

The vaizards; ever fewer know of them. Most that do would not be so quick to assign blame, for they are aware of the injustices done and are not anxious to add to that list.

Battle soon has split Seiritei into halves. It begins to become clearer why they are fighting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Where There is No Sun (2)**

There is wreckage. There are clouds of dust that obscure the sun. There are hungry shinigami hiding in the shadows, and shell-shocked Rukongai residents wandering like undead.

There are only a handful of shinigami who participated in the Winter War still around.

Crouched, curled up and bent so his long body will fit beneath this particular piece of the great wall, Renji holds the halves of his sword together.

He knows that nothing will come of it, but it's habit—the mentality of 'one sword'. If it breaks, fix it, but there will only be one sword.

It's hard to get used to these feeble, lifeless things.

With something like a sigh, like a growl, he throws the pieces away from him and glares at them, lying in the half-light of early morning.

Hisagi watches silently, his eyes hooded and cloudy with exhaustion.

"How much longer," Renji grunts to him. His legs are falling asleep, but he can't move them to restore the circulation.

Hisagi blinks, slowly.

"At least two hours," he eventually says, the words almost inaudible.

Renji's teeth bare in a snarl, gleaming.

"Then we move." He finishes hoarsely, curling around his own weapon.

**xx**

Rukia hears her captures speak above her.

She doesn't move, only to breath. She focuses on keeping her face clear of expression, so they don't realize she's awake.

What are they talking about? She whispers to that corner of herself, and then swallows down a pained cry when Shirayuki's warm light isn't there.

Something cracks against the stone of the floor, and the bound woman starts.

"…o for it to…row."

"Too so…"

"…ure it's d…there?"

"…sitive."

There are heavy footfalls, and Rukia has only just managed to relax her muscles when hands lift her up by the coils of rope around her.

The man's voice is directly over her head now. His voice rings with frightening clarity when he speaks.

"In the meantime, what do we do with this one?"

**xx**

She stops pretending when her body makes contact with cold stone. The two men, haloed by the light of the torch one carries, speak quietly to each other as they move away from her.

She closes her eyes for just a moment, a quick second to collect herself, get her mind in gear. When she opens them again, she sees one of the men look back, not to her, but past her.

His reiatsu—she feels it clearly in that moment, even with her bruised senses—is thrumming with suppressed fear, and a shot of thoughtful, clear thinking that sparks a flutter of panic in Rukia's breast.

The light from the flaming torch disappears before the sound of their footsteps, and soon, she is alone in the dark.

**xx**

Dark shapes move soundlessly down the rough avenues that snake through the ruins. Residents flinch from their path, many turn their eyes away.

The shapes, shadows, specters—an occasional glimpse can be seen through the blur of shunpo. The gleam of an inch of bared steel (the cloth wrapping it must have slipped), or a long ponytail (risky these days). Their dark clothing and the speed at which they fly over the dust marks them as members of the remains of the resistance…Because men of the New Faction have no need to hurry, or to hide.

**xx**

A strange and ominous energy comes from somewhere in the bowls of the structure Rukia has come to recognize as Fuchi, the underground prison that…for a long time, she'd half considered a myth. Its existence wasn't exactly a secret—its name was often employed to scare small children—but with the Detention Unit around and not especially crowded, what need did they have for a second prison?

Following that thought, it takes Rukia only a moment to realize that Fuchi is more of a graveyard than a prison. Fuchi is where they put people to forget about them, isn't it?

The thought makes her shiver.

But that reiatsu—the one that is like an elusive odor more than anything—are there still prisoners down here?

Rukia draws her knees close to her chest, and begins to study the foreign pulse.

There isn't much for her to glean. It feels cold and alien, a thread of heat underneath that makes her think, _anger_, but…beyond that…

Some how, it sparks sympathy. Or empathy. What poor bastard has been abandoned down here?

Peering glumly into a darkness so thick it might be solid, Rukia thinks she can relate with them.

**xx**

The New Faction's defenses are nothing to sneeze at, Renji admits it, but Yoruichi has told him not to worry about it. _You go for the little Kuchiki, leave the big walls for me,_ through that catty smirk.

She flashes a grin in his group's direction before disappearing over the garrison wall after her partner, some nameless woman who can bend in interesting ways. Renji rolls his eyes at the display, and signals his companions to move—all two of them. They're going around the wall.

It had taken six of them three hours to find her, but eventually they had found her reiatsu, alive and to all appearances healthy beneath a few tons of earth and rubble.

_In_ _Fuchi_. Yoruichi had sounded surprised even as she said it. _She must be in Fuchi._

The rest of them were just as stunned, though for notably different reasons. _That place exists?_ Hisagi had said.

Apparently, it does. And apparently that's where the New Fuckers have stashed Rukia.

So that's where Renji's going.

**xx**

Yoruichi enlightened them of a disguised entrance that, as far as she new, had survived the struggle till now. She'd described it as a cellar door, in the back of a Rukongai bar on the other side of the garrison. Hokusu had claimed he knew how to find it, and now he takes the front as they shunpo around the wall, hugging its base.

The bar, when they reach it, is half standing. The back corner of the roof has fallen in, and the entire structure groans as it slowly follows along, but the entrance is safe, and that's what matters.

Tsumai hisses through her teeth, causing Yoruichi to give her a look. Making unnecessary noise, here? Inside the New Faction's fortress? What she wouldn't give for a little _professionalism, _geez.

Not that the dark-skinned woman doesn't understand the other's frustration. They've turned at least half of the garrison on its head, looking, and still they've found no sign of the captured zanpakutou. They have no way of knowing if the swords are even still…_alive_.

They could have been melted down, and just that thought is a pain in Yoruichi's midsection.

She makes the hand sign to continue. Tsumai nods, and leads the way down the quiet stone hall.

There is no choice but to continue looking. The resistance won't last another decade with the soul-cutters, and that is the truth of it.

**xx**

Rukia is woken by a huge racket from above.

She is forced to spy through tiny slits because the brightness of the men's torches burn, and it is difficult to see through her lashes, but she makes out a crude, two-wheeled cart. The man pushing it is struggling to guide it around a rough spot that has the potential to take a wheel. He is cursing, and as she watches he rears back one leg to deliver it a hard kick—but his companion makes an urgent sound and awkwardly catches the man's calf has it moves.

_"You idiot!"_ He snaps.

The cart carries a hundred different kinds of explosives.


	3. Chapter 3

**Where There is No Sun (3)**

Yoruichi feels the earth tremble beneath her soles when the first blast goes off.

She looks down to see dust and rocks jittering, dancing over the hard ground. A sharp-edged pebble the size of her nail clicks against her shoe.

A second explosion comes, larger than its predecessor, and Tsumai stops her chatter with a ragged intake.

"Yoruichi-san, what…was that?" Her partner is nervous. Her voice is small; fearful, and delicate.

Yoruichi forces her eyes up from the dirt. The girl—_no, she's a woman, a fierce fighter—_but now she's a girl—tightens her fingers in the folds of her leggings.

"Yoruichi-san, is it Renji-san and the others? Are they fighting?"

She knows what 'other' this gi- woman has in mind.

She shakes her head, hair swinging. "No, Tsumai, there was no—reiatsu—"

The ground heaves. A third blast.

"But they're still down there." She says.

**xx**

They weren't. But the force of air that rushes up from the darkness hits Hisagi with a will of its own, and blows him back into the building's remaining wall.

Renjis winces when fragments of it give beneath the man's weight, and looks anxiously at the remaining pieces in an effort to gauge their strength. They'll hold, but not for long. They have to hurry.

"We have to hurry." Renji says aloud. Hisagi nods as he takes Mikon's offered hand. His eyes are unfocused and sand covers him like a skin, but he is otherwise unharmed.

"We'll get her, Renji." Hisagi says gruffly, testing his weight on his legs. When they hold, he eases himself away from Mikon's shoulder.

Renji grunts, glances at his men once with too-bright eyes, checks his sword in his sash with a mindful hand. What he wouldn't give for the worn fabric of Zabimaru's hilt wrapping beneath his fingers.

He takes the first step into the abyss.

**xx**

But, it's actually nothing so dramatic. There are a thousand tiny, weathered steps carved into the stone of the earth, descending into the old prison. There is little light besides what comes through the dust-clouded sky and makes its way down from above, but they are prepared, and Mikon lights a torch within moments. The healthy flame shows them a row of empty brackets along to their right. The wall above is blackened: at some point, at least, this place has seen traffic.

Renji's breast has begun to swell with damn hope—_we'll get her back, it's going to actually _work—when Hisagi says, "Wait," in a quiet, breathless voice.

Renji stops, waits. Looks behind to the other man, who is staring up at the firelight, orange-brown rock over their heads with something like resignation.

He follows the line of Hisagi's finger to a crack the width of a vein that runs down and out of sight. While they all three watch it, a little curtain of sand falls down.

"D-did the explosion cause that?" Mikon wonders nervously. His hands shake, and the torchlight flickers.

Renji feels a rolling in his stomach—_fucking knew it_—and has just opened his mouth to reassure them all when the ground seems to buck beneath him and they tumble to the side.

**xx**

Mikon coughs and rubs the growing knot on his head.

"Renji-san…Hisagi-san…?"

The torch has gone out, but he can feel the hot end of it cool somewhere near his foot.

A cloud of swearing suddenly comes from a few feet away, and Renji moves somewhere ahead of him.

"Mikon, can you re-light the torch?"

He blinks for a moment before fumbling through his clothing, searching for…"Ah! Yeah, hold on a…sec…there." As soon as the flame is large enough to be trusted, Renji yanks it away and holds the torch up to the ceiling. Hisagi stands near his shoulder, and together they study the crack.

Mikon shuffles. "Um?"

"It's bigger, but not too much." Hisagi announces.

Renji grunts, and resumes climbing down the stairs.


End file.
